A banned driver sticky-taped fake plates to her car to drive to a friend’s aid.

Claire Guy, 30, could have ended up in prison for using a fake plate held on with tape in an amateurish attempt to drive while banned from the roads.

But she was described in court as a vulnerable woman who had bipolar and post traumatic stress disorders, did voluntary work with support networks and spoke at women’s conferences about her experiences.

After seeing her references, Judge Peter Armstrong said: “I’ve rarely read such extraordinary documents as there are in this case.”

He said the pregnant woman had a hard life in which she got into trouble trying to help others.

She was followed and boxed in by police cars after she was spotted driving a Volkswagon Scirocco with false plates on the A19 on July 11.

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“It’s my car but I’ve cloned the number plates,” she confessed when she was escorted to a lay-by at Wynyard Business Park on the A689.

She had been banned from driving for drink driving last December, Teesside Crown Court heard from prosecutor Rachel Masters on Wednesday.

Guy admitted perverting the course of justice, driving while disqualified and without insurance.

Andrew Turton, defending, said his client was trying to help a friend in need: “Her motives were altruistic.

“She went about this entirely the wrong way. It was poorly carried out, taping the plates to the car, easily detectable.”

He said she followed the advice of a friend who suggested the “foolhardy” solution.

He told how there was a wealth of information about the issues and problems in her background, including domestic violence and an ex-partner currently in prison.

Claire Guy (Image: The Gazette)

The mum tried to put her life back on track in recent years and was extremely remorseful for her crimes.

She was jailed for nine months for conspiring to pervert the course of justice in 2009 after she offered an alibi to her then partner.

Judge Armstrong told her: “Your offending seems to have been an attempt to help others. Clearly the wrong way of going about it but you got sent away for trying to help your partner with a false alibi.”

He said: “Until I read the references in your case I thought there was no avoiding an immediate custodial sentence today.”

The references spoke of Guy in glowing terms as a friend, tenant, and particularly her work in the Together Women Project which helps women out of crime.

“You’ve had a life which many would find very difficult to cope with,” added the judge.